Devilinside "Volume One" CD
[Abacus]
Hot on the heels of the "Prelude" CD EP comes the debut full-length from these guys, of course featuring ex-Disembodied members. Included are an astounding 23 tracks, few more than three minutes, of pounding metalcore with a shitload of sludgy heaviness (sometimes hitting on a little southern tinge), plenty of dissonance, and a major focus on intense rhythms. The vocals are awesome, sometimes mixed a little loud, and they're really nothing new, just blown-out throaty screams, but they're definitely powerful. I have to admit being annoyed by the structure of the record, though. Of the 23 songs many of them are instrumental interludes that get a bit noisier and serve little or no purpose at all in the grand scheme of things. Slightly more melodic and structured instrumentals like "New Year's Day", while still unnecessary, are excellent and do make perfect segues into the tracks that follow, but there's a lot of filler in here bulking up the record and taking away from its focus. Some of the grooves get a little overly plunky too, kind of touching on slight hints of what I could see tagged as a nu-metal sort of vibe, granted this is far more ferocious, but you probably know what I'm getting at. "Dead Wrong" is one of the more advanced pieces as far as tempo changes and overall impact are concerned, "Canyons" and "Transition in E Minor" are excellent acoustic instrumentals that are far eerier than anything else herein and the only mandatory instrumental inclusions (especially the latter, as brief as it is), "Breathing Fear" is another keeper that holds things streamlined and in your face with nice tempo shifts and effective discordant textures, and "The Outlook" gets catchier with some not-quite-there singing vocals that could become damn promising in the future. The production's pretty good, not the best, but good. The drums sound nice and warm, the guitars are thick and gritty in texture with a lot of volume and dominance, the vocals sound fine, etc. I'm not really catching much of a bass presence, it's there, but you don't actively notice it. I think my biggest gripes are in the mix, because I feel like space and density is slipping away from a few key areas, and the vocals too often feel a little overpowering somehow. I can't quite place the issue, but there's something that needs a little polishing up in there to maximize efficiency. The layout looks pretty fucking nice, with tons of big, bold lettering, abstract patterns/designs, and a couple of distorted band photos. The band photo on the cover is printed with a gloss overlay which is a nice touch, and all of the artwork is starkly high contrast, which looks cool. Lyrically things are brief and basic, dealing of course with personal issues in a pretty harsh and bitter manner, but not one that gets generic or overly dramatic or anything like that - it's just honest and straightforward. There are a couple of live videos on the CD-Rom portion filmed in 2003, and the quality's good, both audio and video. It's pretty standard color footage in low lighting, but it gets the point across. Overall this is a nice disc, but still not something I can really swallow. They made a mistake by cluttering up the record with all of the instrumental segments - they should've taken the few killer riffs from that collection and made them into fully developed compositions, keeping the record fluid and focused at 35 minutes or so in total length. The best four or five songs from this CD along with "Transition in E Minor" as an extended closer could've made a sweet EP, I'll say that. (6/10)
Running time - 48:51, Tracks: 23
[Notable tracks: Dead Wrong, Canyons, Breathing Fear, Transition in E Minor, The Outlook]
Abacus Recordings - http://www.abacusrecordings.com

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